Emery prepares for play-off home game this Friday

What took place last Thursday evening in Park City as the Miners and the Emery High Spartans wrapped up the regular football season can best be described as an "ugly" loss for the visiting Spartans. The final score in the game was 49-6 in a game that may not have been this close.

With the loss Emery finished the regular season with a 6-4 record and a 2-2 record in region 8, which put them in a 3-way tie for second in region with North Sanpete and Delta. Friday morning the three schools participated in a coin flip and Emery took the second place region seeding and will host a playoff game this weekend. Delta took the third place seeding and will travel to Hurricane and North Sanpete will travel to Cedar City High. Juan Diego won the region championship and will host a game. Emery will play Uintah at 7 p.m. on Friday at the Spartans home field in Castle Dale. If they are successful in getting past Uintah they will play either Wasatch or Grantsville the following week. Wasatch has home field advantage as the number one team from the bracket Emery is in.

At Park City, the Spartans played without their two starting linebackers due to injury, which is tough against a good rushing team and Park City has the leading rusher in the state. Park City's only flaws in the game were two fumbles that the Spartans recovered. Cyal Christmas and Nico Richetti had the recoveries. Emery fumbled the ball twice and had one interception. Cody Allen scored the lone Emery touchdown on a 75-yard run along the right sideline.

Looking ahead at the first round match-ups, it is conceivable that region 10 will win all four of their games. Wasatch won the region, Union took second place, Judge Memorial was third and Park City finished fourth. All four teams were ranked number one in 3-A football sometime during the season. The craziness of 3-A ball can be shown with Emery blowing out North Sanpete and North Sanpete defeating both Wasatch and Union and Park City blowing out the Spartans. It could be a crazy play-off season.

It is also conceivable that region 8 will win all four of their playoff games. Juan Diego and Emery should each win their home playoff games, as the two teams they will face do not appear to be very good. Delta and North Sanpete could and maybe should easily win both of their road games, as they are pretty decent teams and region 9 is an unknown with only three teams playing 3-A ball. It could be crazy.